Criminal behavior may be hard-wired in the brain, researchers find

Are some people born criminals?

Increasing evidence from neuroscience suggests that many aspects of antisocial behavior can be traced to dysfunctional brains. For instance, brain scans of prisoners suggest the circuitry involved in fear conditioning has gone awry in criminal minds. Deformities of certain parts of the brain that may contribute to antisocial and psychopathic behavior have also been linked to a greater risk of arrests and convictions.

For a definitive answer, scientists would have to scan the brains of thousands of young children, then check back decades later to see which ones went on to lead a life of crime. If the immature brains of the future criminals were different from the immature brains of law-abiding citizens, it would be a powerful piece of evidence that some people are biologically predisposed to criminal activity, according to a group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, USC and the University of York in England.

That experiment is too ambitious, but the researchers did something similar.

In the early 1970s, they traveled to the island nation of Mauritius, off the eastern coast of Africa. They recruited 1,795 3-year-olds and gave them a test designed to measure whether their amygdalas – the part of the brain involved in processing fear – were developing normally.

The test involved a series of 12 tones. Some of them were pleasant. Others were higher-pitched and were followed by a jarring sound produced by “jangling metal objects,” according to a new report in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

The toddlers were hooked up to a polygraph to measure their reactions to the noises. The high-pitched tones were supposed to make them sweat in anticipation of the unpleasant sound, while the pleasant tones weren’t supposed to elicit much response at all.

Twenty years later, the researchers scoured court records to see whether any of their subjects had committed crimes involving violence, drugs, property or serious driving offenses. (Parking fines, expired car registrations, and other petty crimes weren’t counted.)

It turned out that 137 of the subjects – nearly 8% of the total – had criminal records. Looking back at their childhood tests, the scientists found that their reactions to the pleasant and high-pitched tones were the same. That was in stark contrast to the other subjects, who learned to fear the high-pitched tones and sweated accordingly. For the comparisons, criminals were matched with two non-offenders of the same age, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

The results suggest that criminal behavior may be hard-wired – to some degree – in children as young as 3 and could be the result of a malfunctioning amygdala, the researchers wrote. If they’re not afraid that their criminal behavior will land them in jail, what else will deter them?  The result, they wrote, is “a lack of conscience.”

-- Karen Kaplan

Photo: Was this arrest predetermined? Credit: Mark Wilson AFP/Getty Images

Making bad decisions can be contagious

People working in groups tend to become psychologically connected in a way that leads to less independent thinking and the tendency to buy into others' bad decisions, according to a new study.

Psychological research has long told us that people tend to honor their poor investments by escalating their level of commitment. For example, someone who buys a lemon of a car or a dilapidated house will, instead of owning up that it was a mistake and cutting their losses, continue to commit to the project and pour more money, effort and emotions into it.

That also appears to happen in group settings, such as in families or workplaces. Researchers at Northwestern University conducted four experiments along three different contexts: financial investments, personnel decisions and auctions. They found decision-makers justified others' initial decisions and escalated their own level of commitment to these decisions "even in the face of direct financial costs to themselves, and even among economics students trained in the irrationality of honoring sunk costs."

The lesson in the study, published this month in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, is that it's wise to consult with an outsider when you're facing problems.

"It's true that insiders have more knowledge," the lead author of the study, Adam Galinsky, told ScienceNOW Daily News. "But when you are already down the road of a failed course of action, you really need ... a true outsider."

-- Shari Roan

Photo: Steve Osman / Los Angeles Times

Sometimes patients shouldn't hold on to hope

Common wisdom tells us that it's good to nurture hope that things will get better. But a new study suggests that acceptance of an adverse situation, such as a serious health condition, is sometimes better for one's mental outlook than being hopeful the situation will change.

Experiencing something bad naturally causes a decline in happiness. The longer the adversity lasts, the worse one's sense of well being. But researchers at the University of Michigan decided to study a more complex question: Which is better, accepting the permanency of a bad situation or expecting that it is temporary and will change? 

The researchers followed 74 patients who had just received either a permanent or temporary colostomy or ileostomy, a surgery that affects normal bowel function. The participants completed surveys about their life satisfaction. Initially, patients with the reversible condition reported higher life satisfaction than those with a permanent colostomy. However, after the first week, the permanent colostomy patients reported increasing life satisfaction, and those with a reversible condition reported declining life satisfaction. The trend held up over the six-month study period.

Hope can interfere with a person's ability to adapt to their current situation, said the authors of the study, published in the November issue of Health Psychology.

"Hope is an important part of happiness. But there's a dark side to hope," a co-author of the study, Dr. Peter A. Ubel, said in a news release. "We think [the permanent colostomy patients] were happier because they got on with their lives. They realized the cards they were dealt, and recognized that they had no choice but to play with those cards. The other group was waiting for their colostomy to be reversed. They contrasted their current life with the life they hoped to lead, and didn't make the best of their current situation."

There's a lesson here for healthcare professionals, too, the authors wrote. Healthcare professionals want to give their patients hope and may be reluctant to correct false hopes. But patients may be better off facing the truth.

"While hopeful news may be easiest to deliver, it may not at all be in the interests of the recipients because it may interfere with emotional adaptation," the authors wrote.

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

These days, a sneeze is not just a sneeze

If "achoo!" makes you jumpy these days, you're not alone. The swine flu pandemic has made people much more reactive when they hear or see someone sneeze, according to a new study. It found that public sneezing heightens people's fears about germs and even other, totally unrelated, health hazards.

Psychology researchers at the University of Michigan stationed an experimenter in a busy campus building and instructed her to sneeze loudly as students passed by. Researchers then gave a survey to some of the students that asked them to describe their perceptions of an average American contracting a serious disease, having a heart attack before age 50, or dying from a crime or accident. The students who had just witnessed someone sneezing perceived a greater chance of falling ill, suggesting that the sneeze triggered a broad fear of all health threats, not just ones linked to airborne germs.

The study also showed that people within hearing distance of a sneeze had more negative views of the nation's healthcare system.

When the study scenario was repeated at a mall, survey participants exposed to the sneeze were more likely to favor federal spending of $1.3 billion on flu vaccine rather than spending the money on the creation of green jobs.

In times of a flu pandemic, "public sneezing has the power to shift policy," said the lead author of the study, Dr. Norbert Schwarz, in a news release.

Gesundheit!

The study will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Assn. for Psychological Science.

-- Shari Roan

Photo: British Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson demonstrates how to sneeze during a visit to Tyssen Community School, in north London, to help combat the swine flu. Photo credit: Shaun Curry  /  AFP  /  Getty Images

Worry can affect IVF success

A long-standing belief that women are more likely to become pregnant when they quit worrying about becoming pregnant appears to be somewhat true for infertility patients. A study in the October issue of the journal Fertility and Sterility found that women who "let go" of their worries about becoming pregnant during in vitro fertilization treatment were more likely to become pregnant

The study examined 88 women as they went through IVF treatment. The women's emotional coping strategies were measured. For example, researchers tried to determine how much the women thought about or worried about the outcome of their treatments and how much they felt they needed to persevere. "Letting go" was defined as being emotionally disengaged from the process and distracting oneself from the treatment.

Of the 88 women, 21 became pregnant. But those who had the highest scores reflecting a "letting go" attitude were 88% more likely to become pregnant compared with women who tended to worry and ruminate about the treatment.

"Some studies point out that . . . denial, humor, letting go can be beneficial in the event of uncontrollable stressors," the authors wrote. "When control is not possible, focusing on and regulating one's associated emotions may be more effective."

How does not worrying help? Researchers speculate that prolonged emotional stress impacts many bodily functions, including cardiovascular, endocrine, immunological and neuro-visceral systems.

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Wendy Wahman  /  For The Times

Be a better person -- take a hike

Communing with nature not only lifts spirits, it helps people behave better, according to a study published Thursday.

Psychologists at the University of Rochester conducted four experiments with 370 people who were shown computer images of either natural settings, such as landscapes and lakes, or man-made settings, such as buildings and roads. The subjects were encouraged to look at the surroundings carefully, noting things like colors and textures and imagining things like sounds and smells. They then completed questionnaires about the importance of various values, such as wealth, fame, connectedness to community, relationships and the betterment of society.

In all four studies, people exposed to images of nature rated close relationships and community values higher than they had after observing man-made environments. The more deeply engaged people were in the natural settings, the more they valued community and closeness to others. The more intensely they focused on man-made settings, the more they valued fame and wealth.

Nature may influence people by helping them connect to their authentic selves, the authors suggest. After all, humans evolved in hunter-and-gatherer societies that depended on nature. Moreover, being in nature may help people relax, become more introspective, withdraw from the pressures of society and strip themselves of the artifices of society.

The study, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, might help persuade urban planners to incorporate more parks, green space and nature into city life.

"We are influenced by our environment in ways that we are not aware of," the lead author of the study, Netta Weinstein, said in a news release. "The more you appreciate nature, the more you can benefit."

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Will Hart / Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority

Treating transsexual kids: wait for, then delay puberty to treat

The nation's oldest and largest organization of endocrinologists has recommended that physicians treating children with gender identity disorder intervene to delay puberty at its first signs and wait until a child is at least 16 before offering hormonal therapy that would begin his or her gender transition.

In a new clinical practice guideline unveiled today, the Endocrine Society tackled some of the most ethically sensitive decisions endocrinologists face in the treatment of those who are born of one gender, but identify themselves strongly with the opposite gender. Indeed, the society urges that its physicians rely on a mental health professional to render a diagnosis of transsexualism, which is termed gender identity disorder in the psychiatric profession's current diagnostic manual.

The new practice guidelines also recommend that no action be taken to intervene in the hormonal balance of a young child who identifies as the opposite gender of his or her birth. "A diagnosis of transsexualism in a child who has not gone through puberty cannot be made with certainty," the group concluded. 

At the first signs of puberty, however, the new guidelines recommend that physicians use hormone therapy strictly for the purpose of suppressing pubertal changes until an adolescent has reached the age of 16. At that point, the group concluded, "cross-sex hormones may be given."

Those guidelines come at a time when many of those with "gender dysphoria"--persistent distress over one's gender at birth--are asking to begin gender reassignment hormonal therapy and/or surgery at an earlier and earlier age. While surgeons have been reluctant to do gender reassignment surgery on a patient under 18, endocrinologists often face pressure from would-be transsexuals to offer earlier, interim treatment. The new guidelines are likely to set a standard that many endocrinologists will follow in such cases.

"Transsexual persons experiencing the confusion and stress associated with feeling 'trapped' in the wrong body look to endocrinologists for treatment that can bring relief and resolution to their profound discomfort," said Dr. Wylie Hembree, a Columbia University endocrinologist who chaired the committee drafting the guidelines. The new guidelines, he added in a news release, are intended to provide "science-based recommendations" for practitioners to provide "safe and effective treatment" to those diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder.

The transgender community has advocated for changes in the psychiatry's approach to the diagnosis of gender identity disorder, which is now being revisited in drafting sessions for the profession's diagnostic manual. Among the transgender community's concerns: that current definitions of Gender Identity Disorder lump the diagnosis under "paraphilias," contribute to stigmatization, and fail to support the goals of gender transition and access to surgical and hormonal therapies in treatment of GID.

The new practice guidelines are published in the September issue of the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. For a somewhat dated discussion of the ethical issues involved, check out this article from Salon. And if you feel you were born into a body of the wrong gender, here's a place to seek help and support.

-- Melissa Healy

Why do some people ignore evacuation orders?

The recent wildfires and ensuing evacuation orders raise the touchy question of why some people refuse to leave their homes and risk their lives. Do they have a death wish? Long for a little excitement? Were they unable to leave?

A study of Katrina survivors, published this summer in the journal Psychological Science, found that none of those typical assumptions fit. Instead, the people who defied evacuation orders -- many of whom had limited financial resources -- did not feel powerless or passive but instead saw themselves as connected to their neighbors and dependent on each other. They also expressed their faith in God and strong feelings about caring for others.

Stanford psychologist Nicole Stephens conducted two surveys to compare the views of 461 outside observers with the perspectives of 79 New Orleans residents who either rode out Katrina (41 people) or evacuated (38). Detailed measures of the survivors' well-being, such as their mood, life satisfaction, mental health and drug and alcohol usage, were recorded. There were no significant differences in these factors between the people who stayed and those who left. Still, observers were derogatory in their views of the people who stayed, the study found, describing them as careless and dependent.

Relief workers and public officials should not assume that defying an evacuation order is simply a bad choice, the authors suggested, but a choice that reflects one's resources and personal perspectives.

Those who stayed "more often adjusted to their limited options by having faith and by actively maintaining hope despite hardship," the authors wrote. "One stayer stated, 'Through much prayers and faith in God, that's how we made it.' "

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Irwin Thompson  /  Associated Press / Dallas Morning News

Believing is seeing, psychologists say

Conventional wisdom holds that seeing is believing. But sometimes we believe and then we see, say the authors of a study published online this week in the journal Psychological Science.

An international team of researchers found that the way we originally think about the emotions of others -- based on facial expressions -- biases what we perceive and remember later. If we interpret a neutral look as angry or happy, for instance, that is how we'll remember it. The study sheds some light on how interpersonal misunderstandings occur.

The study was conducted by showing participants photographs of faces that express ambiguous emotion. The participants were instructed to think of these faces as angry or happy. They then watched movies of the faces slowly changing expression from angry to happy. The participants were asked to find the photograph they had originally seen among this set of morphing images. The faces that were interpreted as angry were remembered as expressing more anger than faces initially interpreted as happy. Watch the video here.

"We imagine our emotional expressions as unambiguous ways of communicating how we're feeling," a co-author of the study, said Jamin Halberstadt, of the University of Otago in New Zealand, in a news release. "But in real social interactions, facial expressions are blends of multiple emotions -- they are open to interpretation. This means that two people can have different recollections about the same emotional episode, yet both be correct about what they 'saw.' "

Halberstadt added: "It's a paradox. The more we seek meaning in other emotions, the less accurate we are in remembering them."

People probably experience this phenomenon multiple times each day. And there are important implications to the research. People who are socially anxious tend to have negative interpretations of others' reactions that may permanently color their perceptions of those people.

"The novel finding here is that our body is the interface: The place where thoughts and perceptions meet," said Piotr Winkielman, a psychology professor at UC San Diego, and co-author of the paper.

-- Shari Roan

Photo: Faces that were computer-morphed to express ambiguous emotion. Credit: Piotr Winkielman / UC, San Diego

Take your bad news lying down

Here's an interesting question: Are emotional reactions influenced by whether you're sitting, standing or lying down?

A study published this week in the journal Psychological Science suggests they can be. The idea is not without some support. Other studies have shown that body movements affect emotions. For example, smiling will make people feel better even when they're sad and don't feel like smiling. And slouching leads to helpless behaviors. The new study tests the idea that anger can be tempered depending on body posture. It found that the part of the brain that becomes active when one feels angry was somewhat muted among people who were lying down when the emotion was triggered.

Researchers at Texas A&M University studied 46 college students who were told to write a short essay that would be evaluated by another participant. Brain-wave sensors were attached to each participant when they were evaluated. Some participates were left sitting upright in a chair while others were told to recline the chair so they were lying down. Those who were sitting up when their essays were insulted showed more activity in the left prefrontal cortex (the anger center) than those who were insulted while lying down.

It's possible that there is some other explanation for why those who were lying down reacted with less anger, the researchers said. But, they wrote, "it is also possible that some yet-to-be-discovered incidental physiological process occurred as a result of the supine manipulation."

Try it. It can't hurt. It may save you from blowing a gasket.

-- Shari Roan

Photo: Los Angeles Times